"Hit on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one of the gallants, with assumed sympathy, "it is difficult for him to hit on the exact shade to ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... nod, which, though slight, was still more than I deserved from her. The first steps she took in the parlor after she had seen me were stamped with hesitation and a sort of wavering; it was like the action of a partridge lightly hit on the wing and somewhat stunned by the shot. Would she go to the piano, to the window, to the right or to the left, or opposite? It was clear that she did not know herself; but indecision is not the weak ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... stains still visible, and that I had so mucked it in washing, that an infant could have guessed what I had been doing. I knew that my mother who now did household duties herself, selected the things for the laundress; and in despair hit on a plan: I filled the chamber-pot with piss and soap-suds, making it as dirty as I could, put it near a chair and my shirt hanging over it carelessly, so as to look as if it had dropped into the pot by accident; left it there, and put on a clean shirt. ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... "Needs must I have search made for him in all countries." So he summoned Tarkash and bade him choose an hundred horse and wend with them in quest of the Prince. Accordingly he went out and was absent ten days, after which he returned and said, "I can learn no tidings of him and have hit on no trace of him, nor can any tell me aught of him." Upon this King Sasan repented him of that which he had done by the Prince; whilst his mother abode in unrest continual nor would patience come at her call: and thus passed over her twenty ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... region where Dr. Long practiced. He finally satisfied himself, however, of the importance of his discovery, but, having waited until 1846, found that at least three persons—Wells, Jackson, and Morton—had hit on the same discovery, and had made publication of it. Morton patented ether under the name of "Letheon," and in October, 1846, administered it to a patient in ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... Virgil stood nigh, To second his classic desire; When the road-maker hit on the shepherd's reply, 'Miror Magis,' I ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... those of nature, by ending in clear and serene weather. Madame Roguin displayed so much address in her harangue, she was able to touch so many strings in the dry hearts of Monsieur and Madame Guillaume, that at last she hit on one which she could work upon. At this strange period commerce and finance were more than ever possessed by the crazy mania for seeking alliance with rank; and the generals of the Empire took full advantage of this desire. Monsieur Guillaume, as a singular ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac
... for on her way back she hit on a scheme that would turn the hundred and eighty thousand into half a million before it had had ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Allen had managed, in performing a complicated manoeuvre, to place himself in a corner, and Tony rushed. He was sent out again with a flush hit on the face. He rushed again, and again met Allen's left. Then he got past, and in the confined space had it all his own way. Science did not tell here. Strength was the thing that scored, hard half-arm smashes, left and right, at face ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... all right, for when we sailed over to the General's dinner my Captain had Van Zyl about half-full of sherry and bitters, as happy as a clam. The boys all called him Adrian, and treated him like their prodigal father. He'd been hit on the collarbone by a wad of shrapnel, and his arm was ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... Temple, she, of course, will think it only too great an honour.... And he will keep the chain, and perhaps the shawl too. And she will go home, believing that she has fulfilled to the very letter the command to break off her sins by almsgiving, and only sorry that the good priest happened to hit on that particular gewgaw!' ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... you see, if you told grown-ups I should have no peace of my life. They'd get hold of me, and they wouldn't wish silly things like you do, but real earnest things; and the scientific people would hit on some way of making things last after sunset, as likely as not; and they'd ask for a graduated income-tax, and old-age pensions, and manhood suffrage, and free secondary education, and dull things like that; and get them, and keep them, and ...
— Five Children and It • E. Nesbit
... the Persian Gulf, and the line of demarcation between the sands of Arabia and the verdure of the Euphrates valley. But nature has set a permanent mark, half way down the Mesopotamian lowland, by a difference of geological structure, which is very conspicuous. Near Hit on the Euphrates, and a little below Samarah on the Tigris, the traveller who descends the streams, bids adieu to a somewhat waving and slightly elevated plain of secondary formation, and enters on the dead flat and low level of the mere alluvium. The line thus formed ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... the philosopher's stone nor in his efforts to prove the existence of a spiritual world. In vain he pored over every work of occultism upon which he could lay his hands, and tried all known means of incantation. Year after year passed without result, until at last he hit on the expedient of crystal-gazing. As every student of things psychical is aware, if one takes a crystal, or glass of water, or other body with a reflecting surface, and gaze at it steadily, he may possibly perceive, after a greater or less length of time, shadowy images of persons or scenes in ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... Parliament had stopped the goods till it should be decided by law who ought to have them. Fernandez was willing to try the action in the English Courts; but De Lauzon had made no appearance there. And now De Lauzon had hit on the extraordinary expedient of seizing Lucy's ship and dragging the totally innocent Lucy into an action in the French Courts. All which having been represented to the Protector by Lucy's petition, it is begged that De Lauzon may be told he must ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... the circumstances the more certain I was that I had hit on the true solution; and all that night I sat wakeful in the darkness, pondering what I should do. The stones, unset as they were, could never be identified, never be claimed. The channel by which they had come to my hands could never be traced. ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... her pastoral tales, she hit on a new and happy vein which she was peculiarly qualified to work, combining as she did, intimate knowledge of French peasant life with sympathetic interest in her subject and lively poetic fancy. Here she ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... the bare stones, and when I lay down there my bones ached abominably, and it was very cold. Through an aperture in the window came a keen draft and I could see in a square of moonlit sky a glinting star. It was not much of a cellar. A direct hit on the Hotel du Rhin would make a nasty mess in this vaulted room and end a game of cards. After fifteen minutes I became restless, and decided that the room upstairs, after all, was infinitely preferable to this damp cellar and these hard stones. I returned to it and ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... groaned for their fate so hard, From the love of these beautiful maidens debarred, Till a brother just hit on a plan which would stay The woe of these heart-broken monks ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... refused. Time was precious to him, who had to work hard for every thing he possessed, and the Indian repeated his entreaties in vain. The poor fellow looked grieved and disappointed; but a moment after, a sudden thought struck him. He hit on an expedient which none but an Indian ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... Lovelace now hit on a great plan. "Let's organise a strike. Why should we go into school to-morrow? If we can get enough to cut, we can't be ...
— The Loom of Youth • Alec Waugh
... with mocking amusement. Evidently she had hit on other absurd and grotesque aspects in her husband and was awaiting the moment to ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... we have hung on to the ski; hard as the marching is, it is far less tiring on ski. Bowers has a heavy time on foot, but nothing seems to tire him. Evans has a nasty cut on his hand (sledge-making). I hope it won't give trouble. Our food continues to amply satisfy. What luck to have hit on such an excellent ration. We really are an excellently ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... men as they are, it is far more wonderful that no one has hit on the enormous field which wealth opens for the developement of sheer downright mischief. The sense of mischief is a sense which goes quietly to sleep as soon as childhood is over from mere want of opportunity. The boy who wants to trip up his tutor can easily find a string to tie across the ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... sent the manager three great, large tragedies. He knew the aversion a theatrical manager has to read a manuscript play, not recommended by influential folk; an aversion which always has been carried to superstition. So he hit on ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade
... repeated Rothenstein in a tone implying that it was enough to have hit on the surname. "We met in Paris a few times when you were living there. We ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm
... it is a little shivery," Frank answered. "When I get back to New York," he went on, "I'm going to write a story for Dad's newspaper entitled: 'Desperate Desmonds I have Shot Up in the Hills.' That title ought to make a hit on the East Side, ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... be getting somewhere," he murmured. "Whether I can hit on any scheme to beat Rosemary's is a question, but I don't want her to take the risk unless ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... not think we can hit on any better plan, Porus;" and as there was a murmur of assent he continued: "I propose, my friends, that we appoint Porus the head of our victualling department, and leave the arrangements to ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... And this exhibition of unrealities brings me on to the most original feature of the Exhibition, which seems to have escaped all the reporters—to wit, the exhibition of realities. For the committee have hit on a most ingenious notion. The peasants of Hungary marry, and they marry picturesquely. Why should this picturesqueness be wasted, or only be reproduced artificially in comic operas? When a marriage is to be celebrated in any village, let the scene be shifted to the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... more bearers to carry the provisions I had bought, and the chiefs were quite willing to supply them; but their orders had absolutely no effect on the men, who were too lazy, and I should have been in an awkward position had not one of the chiefs hit on the expedient of employing his women. They obeyed without a moment's hesitation; each took a heavy load of yam, all but the favourite wife, the only pretty one of the number; her load was small, but she had to clear the trail, walking at the head of ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... they were able, and succeeded in keeping the crowd off until the foot of the hill was reached, and then someone threw the first stone, which by a strange chance happened to strike one of the cyclists whose head was already bandaged—it was the same man who had been hit on the Sunday. This stone was soon followed by others, and the man on the platform was the next to be struck. He got it right on the mouth, and as he put up his handkerchief to staunch the blood another struck him on the forehead just above the temple, and he dropped forward on his face on to the platform ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... came boldly to the scratch; as he only weighed sixty-five pounds more than his opponent, and with the slight difference of one foot six inches higher, he pitched in most valiantly, and received a splendid hit on the sconce, which made him feel as if a flea bit him. After full ten minutes skirmishing, during which time neither struck the other, both retired to the further corner of the ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... that, but unanimity brought no comfort, until we all together hit on a notion that did ease our feelings a trifle. Coutlass and his two friends were sitting on camp-stools in the open where they could have a full view of our doings. Assuming the camping-ground to be equally divided between their party and ours, they were ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... d'elle is offended. "Anyway he would sooner give me ten thousand than you. You are a woman, and I am a man anyway, a business-like person. And what a scheme I propose to him! Not a bubble, not some chimera, but a sound thing, substantial! If one could hit on a man who would understand, one might get twenty thousand for the idea alone! Even you would understand if I were to tell you about it. Only you . . . don't chatter about it . . . not a word . . . but I fancy I have talked ...
— Love and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... There is no end to rolled-up leaves, and to the variety of creatures that are housed in them; for, just as the "insect tribes of human kind" in all places and in all ages, while seeking to improve their condition, independently hit on the same means and inventions, so it is with these small six-legged people; and many species in many places have found out the comfort and ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... drop Graham into the pond, and Rupertson suggested that two chaps should hold him down while the three who had been caned through his jokes gave him a good thrashing; but Shepherd, the smallest boy in the Fourth, hit on the best idea, and that was to pay him back in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... depth of the focus and state that the long waves have to pass through the epicenter or some such spot underground. Anyway, all the brass agrees that something is going on in inner space not according to Hoyle or Euclid or anybody else and that we three characters might just hit on something of scientific value. ...
— Operation Earthworm • Joe Archibald
... door, pulling out from his pocket the first thing his fingers hit on, and as he went downstairs whistling, "Farewell and Adieu, to you Spanish Ladies," he tossed and caught, and tossed and caught again, an old silver button burnt black ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... got thrashed for it by Black Tom. But there were others only less tender. Philip was leaving home for King William's, and Pete was cudgelling his dull head what to give him for a parting gift. Decision was the more difficult because he had nothing to give. At length he had hit on making a whistle—the only thing his clumsy fingers had ever been deft at. With his clasp-knife he had cut a wondrous big one from the bough of a willow; he had pared it; he had turned it; it blew a blast like a fog-horn. The morning was frosty, and his feet were bare, but he didn't ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... authorities. Longinus not only signifies a spear, but was a Roman name, and that of a soldier and martyr, on the 15th of March: whether he be the person who opened the side of Christ with a spear or no, is a point of less importance. Mr. Addison and Dr. Middleton thought they had hit on a great discovery when they transformed Mount Soracte into St. Orestes. But that mountain is commonly called, not St. Orestes, but San Sylvestro, together with the monastery on its summit. Moreover, ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... British squadron. The fact was apparent, as she approached, by the manner in which her rigging was knotted, and the attention that had been paid to her spars. Even as she closed, the men were on the yard bending a new main-course, the old one having been hit on the bolt-rope, and torn nearly from the spar. There were also several plugs on her lee-side to mark the spots where the French ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... have," came the quick reply, "and here's the way I happened to hit on it. Tell me, do either of you chance to own this pocket handkerchief?" and as he spoke Steve flipped the article in question from its hiding place, and held it ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... old Fighting Instructions as already explained. Whether therefore Knowles's account is precisely accurate or not, we may take it as certain that it was to baffle the French practice of avoiding close action by falling away to leeward that Howe hit on his brilliant conception of breaking through their ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... I will hit on some plan to keep Wesley from making an ingrate of himself without ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... paradise plume out of his face, his eye nervously ranging the prospect, his mind ran over ways to meet the difficulty. By the time Chrystie had conquered her tears, and, with a creaking of tight-drawn silks, was sitting upright again, he had hit on a solution and ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... "You've hit on something, Mills," he said. "The man who thinks the least and acts the most is the happy man, the contented man, because he's nearly always pleased with himself. If he fails at anything he can usually excuse himself on the grounds of somebody ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... few persons have a greater disgust for plagiarism than myself. If I had even suspected that the idea in question was borrowed, I should have disclaimed originality, or mentioned the coincidence, as I once did in a case where I had happened to hit on an idea of Swift's.—But what shall I do about these verses I was going to read you? I am afraid that half mankind would accuse me of stealing their thoughts, if I printed them. I am convinced that several of you, especially if you are getting ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... has been the problem to which the whole crab family have addressed themselves; and, in considering the matter, the ancestors of the Hermit-crab hit on the happy device of re-utilizing the habitations of the molluscs which lay around them in plenty, well-built, and ready for immediate occupation. For generations and generations accordingly, the Hermit-crab has ceased to exercise itself upon questions of safety, ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... and hit on a plan for bringing this about. With some difficulty she persuaded the old man to take his dinner every Sunday and holiday with them, and she always set an ewer of water—and a towel, relic of her old burgher life—by him, ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... enough for Weintraub. He had an infernally complete laboratory in the cellar of his house, where he had made hundreds. The problem was, how to make a bomb that would not look suspicious, and how to get it into the President's private cabin. He hit on the idea of binding it into the cover of a book. How he came to choose that particular volume, ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... Baxter, and he fell back, to become more cautious; and then the two boys began to circle around and around, each looking for a favorable "opening." At last Baxter thought he saw what he wanted, and struck out again, and Dick was hit on the cheek. ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... buy nothing in the island; I dared not have recourse to the king, for I had already received from him more gifts than I knew how to repay. In this dilemma (the schooner being at last returned) we hit on a device. Captain Reid came forward in my stead, professed an unbridled passion for the boxes, and asked and obtained leave to bargain for them with the wizard. That same afternoon the captain and I made haste to the infirmary, entered the enclosure, raised the ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... unstrung nerves. While I was first planning the music to Lohengrin, I was disturbed incessantly by the echoes of some of the airs in Rossini's William Tell, which was the last opera I had had to conduct. At last I happened to hit on an effective means of stopping this annoying obtrusion: during my lonely walks I sang with great emphasis the first theme from the Ninth Symphony, which had also quite lately been revived in my memory. This succeeded! ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... without a word. Then there was a Brahmaputra, whose name was called Udayi (Yau-to-i). He, addressing the women, said, "Now all of you, so graceful and fair, see if you cannot by your combined power hit on some device; for beauty's power is not forever. Still it holds the world in bondage, by secret ways and lustful arts; but no such loveliness in all the world as yours, equal to that of heavenly nymphs; the gods beholding it would leave their ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... refrayne and kepe me well from suche thynge/ This same socrates hymself was chidde and right fowll spoken to of his wyf/ and she Imposid to hym many grete Iniuries with out nombre/ and she was in a place a boue ouer his heed And whan she had brawlid I nowh/ she made her watre and pourid hit on his heed And he answerd to here no thynge agayn/ sauf whan he had dryed and wypid his heed he said/ he knewe well that after suche wynde and thonder sholde comen rayn and watre And the philosophres ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... John had been feeling sorely enough the torment of carrying about a secret. But to the girl's broken utterances he held no clue at all, nor could he hit on one. ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I daresay. Ha, ha!" laughs a fatuous youth—a Mr. Courtenay—who lives about five miles from the Court, and has dropped in this afternoon, very unfortunately, it must be confessed, to pay his respects to Lady Baltimore. Fools always hit on the truth! Why, nobody knows, except the heavens above us—but so it is. Young Courtenay, who has heard nothing of the unpleasant relations existing between his host and hostess, and who would be quite incapable of understanding them if he had heard, now springs ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... driver advanced the hand throttle the full sweep of the quadrant, steered with his knees, and produced the "makings." The faithful little motor continued to hit on all four, but in slow and painful succession, each explosion sounding like a pistol shot. We had passed already the lowest point of the "sink," and were climbing the slope on the other side. The country, as usual, looked perfectly level, but ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... hit on the right solution," sighed Carl; "if it didn't do anything else it would give us a chance to think up some other scheme for getting ...
— The Boy Scouts of Lenox - Or The Hike Over Big Bear Mountain • Frank V. Webster
... kill 'em, an' I don't think it hurts 'em much," said the captain, thoughtfully. "Maybe we can rig up some sort of trap that will do the work without killin' 'em. It's time for bed, now, lads, but think it over and, perhaps, we can hit on some scheme. Had we better take ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Fanny, "I daresay I'm a goose. Perhaps I ought to be grateful to Mrs. Levitt. If he was on the look-out for adventures, it's just as well he hit on one that'll keep him off it for the future. She'd have been far more deadly if she'd been a nice woman. If he ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... pattern of the faded cloth that hid the round table at which I sat. The ink was thick, pale, and sticky; the pen spluttered. I wrote furiously, anxious to be done with it. Once I went and leaned over the balcony, trying to hit on a word that would not come. Miles down below, little people crawled over the cobbled street, little carts rattled, little workmen let down casks into a cellar. It was all very grey, ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... much groaning and straining as ever, but it was not so loud or squeaky in tone; and when the ship quivered she did not jar stiffly, like a poker hit on the floor, but gave with a supple little waggle, like a ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... quite so horrified," he admitted. "All the same, I hope I may manage to hit on a restaurant up-town somewhere, where the waiter ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... threw the handkerchief, she was holding, straight into Pao-yue's face. Pao-yue was quite taken by surprise. He was hit on ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... was only a single thief here," he presently said. "And I'll tell you why I hit on that. He certainly carried off a few things, just as much as he could grab up in a big hurry when he heard us. Now, his first intention was to scoop in the whole business; you can see how he piled the stuff up ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... the "Origin of Species" came out, but he might as well have preached to the winds, for all the visible effect that had been produced. On the appearance of Mr. Darwin's book the effect was instantaneous; it was like the change in the condition of a patient when the right medicine has been hit on after all sorts of things have been tried and failed. Granted that it was comparatively easy for Mr. Darwin, as having been born into the household of one of the prophets of evolution, to arrive at conclusions about the fixity of species ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... says, 'I can't say I'm delighted; but I've got to go through it and I shall keep my end up.' And he adds, 'Death I don't care a hang about! What worries me is the thought that they're going to cut my head off. Ah, if the governor could only hit on some trick to send me straight off to the next world before I had time to say knife! A drop of Prussic acid, ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... by that time he'll be moulderin' dust en dry bones. Old Jim's still harpin' on that funeral business. Now he plans to hold a big barbecue en send out invitations. Jim's got the money all right, but he wants to spend hit on a big, ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... or in the dugout. It was lovingly adorned by the French with the tri-colour of France, with bronze wreaths, with woodland flowers, and was altogether bright and beautiful in the bare woods. They showed us a shell by the cave—a gas shell that had come over during the morning and had hit on the oblique and had not exploded. It was gently leaking chlorine gas, which we sniffed—but gingerly. Other shells were popping into the place and fairly near us with some regularity and enthusiasm, and it seemed to Henry and me ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... came quickly to the rescue. "Of course," he said, "that's all rot. We're only too grateful to—to Science for trying to invent a new gadget.... Only, you see, sir, in the meanwhile, until you hit on it we feel we aren't ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... communications with Browning was, he says, "celerity "—"whatever he had to consider or speak about, he disposed of in the most forthright style." His method was of the greatest directness; "every touch told, every nail was hit on the head." He was not a sustained, continuous speaker, nor exactly a brilliant one; "but he said something pleasant and pointed on whatever turned up; ... one felt his mind to be extraordinarily rich, while his facility, accessibility, ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... hills. Now, when I am sad, I like nature to charm me out of my sadness, like David before Saul;[9] and the thought of these past ages strikes nothing in me but an unpleasant pity; so that I can never hit on the right humour for this sort of landscape, and lose much pleasure in consequence. Still, even here, if I were only let alone, and time enough were given, I should have all manner of pleasure, and take many clear and beautiful images away ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he, "I grieve to find The course of life you've been and hit on— Sit down," said he, "and never mind The pennies for the ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... year another baby came, and that was a boy. In two years another, but Raymond never forgave his wife that first offense. He continued to struggle, trying various styles of pictures and ever hoping he would yet hit on what the public desired. Mr. Vanderbilt had not yet made his famous remark about the public, and how could ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... then, with a gentle yearning pity for Pogson, and revolved many plans for his rescue: none of these seeming to be practicable, at last we hit on the very wisest of all, and determined to apply for counsel to no less a ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lightened on the following day by a weight of about 100 lbs., and there was also hope of a better surface if only the crystal deposit would either harden up or disappear. Their food, too, was proving ample. 'What luck to have hit on such an excellent ration. We really are an excellently found party.' Indeed, apart from the strain of pulling, Scott's only anxiety on Sunday, January 7, was that Evans had a ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... shouted the Doge. "He goes by to-morrow's train! It will be a gala affair, almost an historical moment in the early history of this community. I am to make a speech presenting him with the freedom of the whole world. Between us we have hit on a proper modern symbol of the gift. He slips me his Pullman ticket and I formally offer it to him as the key to the hospitality of the seven seas, the two hemispheres, and the teeming cities that lie beyond the range. It will be great fun, with plenty of persiflage. And, Mary, they suggest ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... go the torpedo lever. His whole orderly plan of action was crashed in a second.—For an instant he stood gaping at the radio man, forgetful of the peril outside, striving desperately to hit on some way of surmounting this unlooked-for obstacle. The idea of firing on his friend—killing Hemmy Bowman with his own ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... Count; "I think you have hit on the very answer to your question; not but what men of high birth were as mad as the canaille. I am the more willing to gratify your curiosity, since it will perhaps serve to guide your kind search in my favor. ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... descending from the woods, each laden with a whole pine-tree for the winter's firing. At the top of the woods, which do not climb very high upon this cold ridge, I struck leftward by a path among the pines, until I hit on a dell of green turf, where a streamlet made a little spout over some stones to serve me for a water-tap. "In a more sacred or sequestered bower ... nor nymph nor faunus haunted." The trees were not old, but they grew thickly ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... last something happened to put me in mind of it—or was it Wednesday, maybe? I know it's something I need about the house—or maybe the yard. You'll have to help me out. I've got a poor memory, but you just sort of run over a list of things folks would be most likely to need and maybe you'll hit on the right thing, and if it's that I want, I'll get it right now. Don't stand there like a hitching-post, boy! Why can't you suggest something, and help out a woman old enough ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... this sort of thing, and I don't want to spoil your holiday. I'd like you to have a really good time, but I wish you'd hit on ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... to keep well from under each one as he descended, or suffer the befouling consequences of his fear ... we had great laughter over several men who came within the explosive radius ... till the mate hit on the device of tying each beast's tail close before he was jerked up ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... been this year past, it seems, sweethearting ... and a bit more ... with a famous lady of fashion here in town. But he'd not a penny, and she'd ten thousand pounds of debts. So marry they couldn't till she hit on ...
— The Harlequinade - An Excursion • Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
... where shall I hit on a "perfect cure"? (What ails me I am not quite sure that I'm sure) To Nice, where the weather is nice—with vagaries? The Engadine soft or the sunny Canaries? To Bonn or Wiesbaden? My doctor laconic ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... awhile, and hit on the explanation. Parson Chichester last evening, calling on the coast-guard in his search, must have used their telephone and got the message through by some office open ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... him; otherwise, it was none of your business, except as successful rascality had a claim on your admiration. Young Strong liked to write furious reform editorials—all right; if you were the one hit, you would swear at Strong and stop your subscription until a hit on some one else made you renew it; otherwise, it was none of your business and lively reading. They leaned against the wall and desk, and began with perfect good-nature to tell stories of the Judge. "R'member the time he got that Mexican ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... with one's own inclinations hath ever a comfortable appearance of soundness. I told the captain that he had hit on the very scheme I had proposed to myself, adding, however, that I had ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... meant to speak for a quarter of an hour; and in an out-of-the-way Hampshire district, where I had gone on purpose to address the rurals for a set hour, I have sate down, covered with confusion, in ten minutes, not being able to hit on anything that interested them at all. I saw too plainly, in all their good-natured faces, that they regarded me as the greatest ass they had ever seen, or as an odd kind of cow gone wrong, and of no use to the three acres. Dickens's ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... own ideas were all vague and strange, as I sat there that night with this,"—he tapped his water-pipe—"and tried to hit on some plan; and somehow the horror passed away, and I felt no fear of the poor wretch lying there before me. I wondered at myself—that I could sit there so calmly smoking, in the face of all that had passed; but I did, for I said to myself, 'What ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... be revived with impunity, there are some that cannot. Mr Duncombe the younger has hit on one which affects several gentlemen still living, and his injurious version of it cannot be neutralized or atoned for by an apology to one. We call attention to it in the hope that any more serious notice will be rendered needless by the ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... that we both are here; and that we have got before us a journey that is likely to be a jolly one. I suppose that you have given your parole, as I have; but when we are once in prison there will be an end of that, and it is hard if, when we put our heads together, we don't hit on ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... that Lycian Pandarus, Lycaon's son, when he shot at Menelaus the Grecian with a strong arm, and deadly arrow, Pallas, as a good mother keeps flies from her child's face asleep, turned by the shaft, and made it hit on the buckle of his girdle; so some he solicitously defends, others he exposeth to danger, poverty, sickness, want, misery, he chastiseth and corrects, as to him seems best, in his deep, unsearchable and secret judgment, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... pressure were equal to Tom's highest hopes. He knew, now, that he had hit on just the right mixture of powder, and that his gun was correctly proportioned. It showed ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... continue the report of this animated and intellectual meeting. It lasted till call-over, was renewed again directly after tea, and continued long after the speakers and audience were in bed. Bosher got dreadfully mobbed, besides being hit on the ear with a stone and hunted several times round the playground by ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... Mrs. Furnace took the risk with a cheerful mind. The woman came from Saltash, where she and her mother had driven a thriving trade in cockles and other shellfish, particularly with the Royal Marines; and being a busy spirit and childless, she hit on the notion of turning her old trade to account. Her husband, William John, had tilled Merry-Garden and stocked it with fruits and sallets with no eye but to the sale of them in Saltash market. But the house was handy for pleasure-takers by water, and by and by the board she put up— ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... queerly with the old red brick and the latticed panes. And the long wooden veranda that he had invoked did not unify the trinity. But one didn't want it to. The wrongness had a character all its own. The wrongness was right—at any rate after Mary had hit on it for William. As a spinster, she would, I think, have been happiest in a trim modern villa. But it was a belief of hers that she had married a man of strange genius. She had married him for himself, not for his genius; but this added grace in him was a thing to be reckoned with, ever so much; ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... side were paralysed; in another case a bullet tore its way through and across the crown of a soldier's head and caused paralysis of the opposite side of the body. Another man had, so it was said, been hit on the shoulder; the bullet passed right through his body piercing his lungs and intestines and coming out at the thigh. Yet, strange to say, the poor fellow was in excellent spirits and complained only of slight ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... and quiddity I've sat all day alone, apart— And all that I could hit on as a problem was—to find Analogy between a scrag of mutton and a Bony-part, Which offers slight employment to the speculative mind. For you cannot call it very good, however great your charity— It's not the sort of humour ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... drumming the banks in vain: also that the Genoese, whom his incursion had merely confounded, were beginning to lift their heads and take the offensive again. At first he had terrified them like a mad dog; the one expedient they could hit on was to set a price upon his head. Certainly he had gifts. He contrived—and by sheer audacity, mark you, backed by a fine presence—to drive them into such a panic that, months after he had sailed, they were petitioning France to send over troops to help ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... be extravagant to suppose that a discovery like this can leave our future relations untouched. We now know that we are profoundly united in a union much stronger and deeper than any mechanism can produce. I know how difficult a problem it is to hit on the best device for giving political expression to this union between States separated from one another by the whole world's diameter, differing in their circumstances, their needs, and their outlook. I do not dare to prescribe; but I should like to make a few remarks, and ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... She couldn't see that Mr. Frog's answer had anything to do with the case. But Paddy Muskrat exclaimed at once that Mr. Frog had hit on the very thing. ...
— The Tale of the The Muley Cow - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... dictionary with me as a sort of terrestrial almanac, and I fancied that, as they spoke gibberish to me, the best way was to give it to them back again as near as might be in their own coin, hoping I might hit on su'thin' to their liking. By this means I've come to be rather more voluble ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a notion fer ter buil' 'im a noo kitchen; en bein' ez he had lots er timber on his place, he begun ter look 'roun' fer a tree ter hab de lumber sawed out'n. En I dunno how it come to be so, but he happen fer ter hit on de ve'y tree w'at Sandy wuz turnt inter. Tenie wuz gone, en dey wa'n't nobody ner nuffin' fer ter watch ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... any value, it consists in two things: the first is that thoughts are expressed in it, and on this score the better the thoughts are expressed—the more the nail has been hit on the head—the greater will be its value.—Here I am conscious of having fallen a long way short of what is possible. Simply because my powers are too slight for the accomplishment of the task.—May others come ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein |
